256 pages ; 19 cm

"Walter Benjamin is widely acknowledged as amongst the greatest literary critics of this century, and The Origin of German Tragic Drama is his most sustained and original work. Opponents of Benjamin's aesthetics - singled out this work as one of the main sources of literary modernism in the twentieth century." "The Origin of German Tragic Drama begins with a general theoretical introduction on the nature of the baroque art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concentrating on the peculiar stage-form of royal martyr dramas called Trauerspiel. Benjamin also comments on the engravings of Durer, and the theatre of Shakespeare and Calderon. Baroque tragedy, he argues, was distinguished from classical tragedy by its shift from myth into history."--Jacket

Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-252) and index

Introduction / George Steiner -- Epistemo-Critical Prologue -- Trauerspiel and Tragedy -- Allegory and Trauerspiel

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